


Favouritism

by MissMarchioness



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Violence, but they both have to go THROUGH IT first
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26838061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMarchioness/pseuds/MissMarchioness
Summary: Declan Lynch had never been his parent’s favourite. He had learnt early on that he was, in fact, no one’s favourite.Ashley Evans was everybody’s golden girl and living the American dream. But, as the prophets say, everything comes with a price.The dreamers, the dreams, and the one left over.
Relationships: Declan Lynch/Ashley
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	Favouritism

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fic! I hope y’all like it :)

Declan Lynch had never been his parent’s favourite. His brothers, Ronan and Matthew, already filled those positions. Ronan was a dreamer, just like his father, and a damn near clone of the man. Whenever Niall Lynch spoke of his middle son’s birth, which was often, he told the story with grandeur and heroism, painting Ronan to be a force of nature so powerful that even the birds stopped their migrations to acknowledge his arrival into the world. Declan thought the story of his birth should be just as exciting- he was the first son, after all- but whenever he asked Niall, his father would shrug and say, “Wouldn’t know, I was doing business in France.”

He wasn’t his mother’s favourite, either. Niall had dreamed Aurora into existence, and Ronan had done the same with Matthew, the apple never falling far from the tree. Matthew and Aurora were kind to a fault, always cheerful, and adored by everyone who met them. Aurora doted on and swaddled her youngest son in a way she never did with Declan. She never swaddled Ronan, either, but Declan felt that was a minor technicality easily overlooked. Aurora was always a little less obvious in her favouritism than Niall, but it was not enough for Declan to fool himself into thinking otherwise. But who did that leave Declan with? He didn’t have any other relatives, and his brothers preferred each other’s company to his. Who has Declan as their favourite? The answer, he learned early on, was no one.

The dreamers, the dreams, and the one left over.

***

Ashley Evans knew she lived the American dream. Two loving parents, country club membership, a nice house and an even nicer car, she had everything she could ever want. She was everybody’s golden girl; guys wanted to date her, girls wanted to be her, she had the whole world at her beck and call. It has been said that absolute power corrupts absolutely, but this was not true of Ashley. She was caring, thoughtful, loved deeply and completely. She was the kind of person who used her status to do good in the world, a philanthropist, if you will, and people adored her even more for it. Ashley Evans had it all, but, as the prophets say, everything comes with a price.

The price for being Ashley Evans was this: nightmares. Not your average, run-of-the-mill nightmares either, of being chased or falling or losing all your teeth. No. Ashley’s nightmares were a horror she never spoke about for fear of provoking them into coming true. When Ashley dreamed, her nightmares always, without fail, depicted the slow and agonising death of everyone she loved. They were different, twisted deaths each time, never lessening in their cruelty. More than anything, Ashley feared love, because love meant bringing another person to suffer when she slept.

This was why she was terrified when she fell in love with Declan Lynch.

***

When Ashley fell in love with Declan, they had been going steady for just over a year. This had surprised them both, as well as everyone else; he had a reputation for bouncing his way from girl to girl, and she was too good for him, anyway, so everyone figured that, eventually, he would leave her for another girl, blonde and long-legged and also named Ashley. This was exactly what Declan had intended to do, but he surprised himself more and more the longer he stayed. It wasn’t that he thought he was too good for Ashley; that was not how Declan had been taught to think, and at any rate, if that were the case, he joined the masses in thinking it was most certainly the other way around. It was that dating gave him the ability to feel like he was someone’s first choice, and some small, ugly part of him relished in breaking hearts. He knew it was cruel, and he hated himself for it, but he did it anyway. When he was with Ashley, though, he found that he would do anything to keep her heart from breaking, and that terrified him beyond reason. Declan had never been very interested in love, not when it had been so unkind to him before. He was in love now, though, and, for once, he had no idea what he was going to do.

Declan first realised he was no one’s favourite when Ronan dreamed a flaming sword and brought it back. An accident, Declan knew; Ronan was six at the time and hadn’t learnt to control his dreaming yet. Declan still had to pull his brother out of the flames, though. When the dream fire that had eaten Ronan’s bed and half of his bookcase was extinguished, Niall went to check on Ronan for injuries, and Aurora on Matthew in case the noise had woken him up. Declan had been left to retreat back to bed, alone with the newfound knowledge that he never was, or will ever be, anyone’s first priority. His parents came to check on him later, of course, when Ronan and Matthew had been seen to, but by then it was too late.

***

One night, Ashley’s nightmares were different. She didn’t know if it was because she had fallen asleep next to him, with his arms wrapped around her, or if it was because he was her whole world at this point, but tonight, she dreamed only of Declan.

She had already seen him, alongside her family, hung, drowned, and poisoned, and each time she had woken in tears, inconsolable. Tonight was so much worse, though.

He stood in the middle of a black room, looking so familiar in his Declan-ness her heart ached. His blazer and jeans fit perfectly, his shoes freshly polished, expensive silver watch gleaming. His hair was in careful curls, his eyes the blue she saw whenever she closed her own, the blue she fell for. He turned, saw her watching, smiled. Not the careful, inoffensive one he always gave, either. It was his real one, wide and bright and free, the one he saved just for her. Run, she wanted to tell him, get out of here!

But that was not how her nightmares worked.

She could only watch as an unseen force slammed him to the ground. She couldn’t scream as he staggered to his feet, only to have his face smashed in by an invisible fist. He looked at her, nose broken, blood dripping, hurt and confused.

Scene change.

Now he was on a table, arms and legs tied down with thick ropes of barbed wire. She couldn’t look away as she watched him flinch at the barbs digging into him, couldn’t run to save him as a figure in a black robe started cutting him open, bit by bit, with a long jagged knife. She couldn’t cover her ears against his screams, agonised and breaking.

Scene change.

He was struggling, being held in place by the same figure she saw before. A fire burned in front of them, flames dancing and crackling, dazzling in its deadliness. She couldn’t turn her head or whisper a prayer when his arm was wrenched forward into the flames. She could barely see, her tears were so thick, but she could smell the burning flesh, hear the sizzle of skin, feel the pain he was in as if it was her arm in the flames instead of his. How she wished she could take his place, beg the figure to inflict the tortures upon her instead of him, her Declan. His screams. Endless and stretched thin. She wanted to scream, run, do anything, but she could only stand and weep as Declan Lynch burned.

Stop.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Her nightmares killed only once. One way to die, and then she woke up, dreading the next time. Declan was dying more, over and over, each death increasing in terribleness. She couldn’t stand it, couldn’t take another minute of it. Her body was still frozen, but her mind raged. It screamed and kicked and scratched. Declan, it screamed, over and over. Declan!

She broke the nightmare’s grip on her. Or maybe it allowed her to go. She didn’t care how she woke up; she just wanted to wake.

She bolted upright in the bed, felt a weight jerk off her as she did. She was damp with sweat, and she was sobbing. She’d never cried so loud, or with so much despair, despite the horrors her dreams had shown her over the years.

“Declan!” she screamed, longingly, desperate to hear him respond.

***

He had been dreaming about a memory of her. They were studying for exams in the library; she had her hair twisted into a bun, contacts swapped for black-rimmed glasses, an oversized sweater wrapping her like a hug. She had been working on a practice essay, and stopped to push up her glasses and rub her tired eyes. He watched her then, ignoring the page of equations he was almost finished with. He watched a lock of hair escape and fall onto her cheek, watched her push it back absently before he could reach across and do it for her. He watched her glasses fall back into place as she peered down at her essay with a little frown, listened to her impatient huff. He watched her twist the silver ring on her finger as she read over a sentence that seemed to dissatisfy her; a moment later she picked up her pen and crossed it out with three, neat lines. She glanced up, then, and he didn’t even try to hide his staring.

“What?” she’d asked, her face lit up with a half-smile.

“You’re beautiful,” he’d replied, a very un-Declan-like statement, considering it was the truth and he specialised in lies, but he said it all the same. At this particular moment in time, he didn’t want to lie. Not to her.

He snapped out of the dream when he felt her bolt upright next to him, the arm he’d draped over her jerking away pre-emptively. She screamed his name, just once. In that scream, he could hear pain and desperation. Fear garnished with a sob. He never wanted to hear those sounds from her again, never wanted to hear her sound so broken. Defeated. He sat up.

“Ash?” he asked, voice rough with sleep. “What’s wrong?”

***

He responded. He was alive. She turned to him, quickly, and his sleepy blue eyes widened as he took in her tear-stained face and heaving chest. She sobbed with relief as she looked at him. His nose was unbroken, his face clear of blood. He was not covered in wicked cuts, nor was his skin burnt and melted. He was simply Declan, the boy she loved, whole and healed and here. She pitched herself forward, throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face into his shoulder. After a moment, she felt him hug her back, hard, gathering her against him.  
“What is it?” he asked, gently.

She let another sob claw its way out of her throat. She shook her head, not lifting her head from his shoulder. She couldn’t tell him, couldn’t risk those awful dreams coming true. Couldn’t risk losing him. Ashley squeezed her eyes tighter and hugged him harder, certain that she was crushing him and he’d push her away any minute now. Only he didn’t. Declan clung to her with just as much force, as if she was the only thing keeping him from drowning.

“Ashley,” he whispered, “tell me what’s wrong.”

She could tell from his tone and careful persistence that he wasn’t going to let this drop. It was the politician in him; always ready to push an issue, cater to his agenda. It didn’t annoy her, like she thought it would. It didn’t feel like he was pushing an agenda. It felt like he cared. It felt like he wanted to know about her problems and fears so he could make them all go away. 

“I had a nightmare,” she explained, lifting her head to look at him. “I get them a lot. I’ve never told anyone, because I keep thinking that if I talk about it they’ll come true. And I won’t let them, because in them, I watch everyone I love die. Everyone.

“But it was different tonight, it was just you. You died over and over, and it was so horrible and I couldn’t do anything, and,” she came to an abrupt stop, finding that she couldn’t say anything more, so she pulled him to her again, feeling the solidness and realness of him under her touch.

She felt him go still, his breathing hitched. It was not easy to catch Declan Lynch by surprise, but Ashley had managed it. She realised that, although she’d been in love with him for several months now, she hadn’t ever told him. She pulled back to stare into his blue, blue eyes. He was staring back at her, his careful facial expressions gone, replaced with undisguised wonder and adoration.

“I think now’s a good time to tell you that I love you,” she said. “I love you. You’re my favourite person, Declan Lynch. I wouldn’t trade you for the world.”

He didn’t say anything at first, just blinked in surprise and looked away. When he turned his face back to her, she saw his eyes were pools of ink, wet with unshed tears. They stared at each other, unblinking, and then he leaned in to kiss her.

This kiss was different to its predecessors. It was needier, stronger. Declan pulled her to him, harder and closer, in a way he hadn’t ever before. She tangled her fingers in his curls, his hands rose to cup her face. When they broke away, Declan’s cheeks were damp. She couldn’t tell if they were her tears or his, but she reached out to wipe them away anyway. He still hadn’t said anything, but he didn’t need to; that kiss told her everything she needed to know. He loved her, too, just as much as she loved him. Maybe even more.

***

Declan Lynch did not cry easily. He was not surprised easily, and he was never, ever caught off guard. Ashley Evans had made all three of these things happen to him within a matter of seconds, and he couldn’t believe how much he did not care.

He held her close when she told him about the nightmares, wanting to keep her safe and knowing that he couldn’t, not from this, anyway. He had seen enough of Ronan’s accidental manifestations to know all too well the horrors of nightmares. He had already been knocked flat by the ‘I watch everyone I love die’, the words hitting far too close to home, but he was obliterated by the ‘You’re my favourite person.’ Favourite.

All his life, Declan had never been anyone’s favourite. He was always the other one, the dispensable one, the one everyone forgot. And now here was Ashley, the girl he loved, telling him he was the person she loved more than anyone. He had never known the feeling of being somebody’s favourite until now, and he didn’t know how he’d managed to live without it for so long. It was a warmth in his chest, a spark behind his eyes, a tugging at his lips. For the first time in his life, Declan knew how it felt to be wanted.

He didn’t know what to say, which was also very un-Declan-like; he always knew exactly what to say, when to say it, and how to say it. Ashley reduced him to a pile of un-Declan-ness, and it scared him how much he loved it. So he didn’t say anything at all. He just kissed her, and he knew she understood what he was trying to say but couldn’t, for his words had deserted him.

When he broke away, though, he found his words had come wandering back. As he stared at the perfection of her, he thought of all the things he wanted to say. And, even though he didn’t need to because she already knew, he said them anyway.

“I love you, too,” he murmured, resting his forehead against hers. “I love you so much. More than you could possibly know.”


End file.
